As summer vacation approaches, some readers like to build up a travel library, with the intention of devouring it by the pool or on the beach. But we still have to choose books that will transport us from the first to the last page. If you can read in small bits, peck at a collection of short stories, can you safely abandon a novel of 200 or 300 pages? Literature has been so sacred in France that one refuses not to finish a book. But on the contrary, rather than inflicting endless reading on vacation, this may be the best thing to do.
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Abandoning a book is one of the ten rights to the reader listed by the writer Daniel Pennac in his work on the subject. In addition, a 2016 study had shown that out of ten books, the average reader finishes only one, and does not go beyond page 100 for every second book.
There can be the Internet excuse; in a world where everything is accelerating, it is more and more difficult to ask yourself, to concentrate. Some studies have shown that we read less on a reader than with a physical book in our hands, as if the immateriality of electronic ink prevented our mind from fixing. But very often, we have a false idea of the world before the Internet. No, we didn't read more or better before the digital revolution.
Read the first 50 pages
A professor of American literature has developed a theory: stopping reading a book does not prevent finding the book very good. Simply, after a while, you can feel that the continuation risks spoiling the pleasure taken from reading the first part.
Another scenario: when boredom occurs on the first page. In this case, do not have the mood to stop reading, even if it is recommended to hold at least until page 50. Sometimes our reading habits can be so shaken by the book that we just opened that we need a little time to get there.